European Poker Tour Event in Kyiv Draws 296 Players

Poker pro Ivan Demidov is one of the many Russian poker pros who turned out for the EPT Kyiv event."]

The sixth season of the European Poker Tour got underway on Tuesday with the inaugural EPT Kyiv. The event, which was originally slated to take place in Moscow but had to change location after some political   wrangling, drew an impressive 296 players, 116 of whom hail from Russia, a testament to the growing popularity of poker in Russia.

With Day 2 of the €5,000 buy-in tournament now in the books there are still 203 players left in the running with most of them being the aforementioned Russians, including Ivan Demidov, Alex Kravchenko and Alexander Kostritzyn. Other recognizable names still alive in Kyiv are Katja Thater, Shaun Deeb, Andrew Feldman, Nicolas Levi, "Miami" John Cernuto, Christian Dragomir and former Team Bodog member Atanas Gueorguiev.

The players return tomorrow (today? yesterday? time zones are confusing) to continue down to the final table and the ultimate goal of the €330,000 first-place prize. The top 40 players get at least their money back and the top eight (EPT is different) will play at the final table.

If you want a chance to qualify online for the EPT, Bodog Poker's Flight Club promotion is giving away at least one seat every month to a major international poker event. A full list of events and locations can be found here.